SegWit developers explode myths about their upgrade

08 August 2017

Miners have actively supported activation of Segregated Witness (SegWit), one of upgrades for the bitcoin blockchain. Currently, its activation does not cause doubts, although there are still lots of disputes regarding this update. The Blockstream project team, including Belgian developer Pieter Wuille (SegWit creator), has published the article on its blog, dispelling the most popular myths.

About the patent: some users believe that Blockstream owns it. But the company asserts that neither it nor anybody else has submitted applications on the patent. SegWit remains open source software developed by Blockstream along with other community participants.

About Blockstream’s commercial interest to implement SegWit: some users make such conclusions based on the fact that the company has took part in the upgrade development. But the blog says that company’s specialists conduct SegWit, like some other open source projects, not for money but for the contribution to the future technology. According to the corporate agreement, the involvement of specialists in such solutions is not subject to senior executives.

About SegWit relation with Blockstream’s own projects: one of opinions is that the upgrade is required for Liquid, a key software product of the company. Denying this fact, Blockstream stresses that its product has been already functioning, though the bitcoin update has not happened yet.

Later on, the blog mentions that SegWit is required for Lightning Network, Blockstream’s open source solution.

About SegWit operating concept: despite common attitudes, the upgrade does not conduct off-chain transactions on its own. It also does not delete transaction signing data but rather save them in a larger block.

In conclusion, Blockstream says that SegWit adoption won’t bring benefit to the company. But this solution will be useful for everyone engaged in blockchain-based development and for the bitcoin community in general.